From duty to delivery

July was a historic month for devolution and the mission to reshape the state, moving power closer to local communities. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill promises a lot, including strengthening regional powers and promoting better collaboration across all tiers of government.

But how can places deliver this change against a backdrop of stagnant growth, regional inequality, economic inactivity and enduring disillusionment with the state?

The new Bill is key to supporting delivery of national missions that transcend local borders, including transport, infrastructure, innovation, trade and net zero.

‘Collaboration' is a watchword, included 67 times, with a new legal ‘duty to collaborate' that compels public sector bodies to work more effectively together at a local and regional level.

Too often, local leaders find themselves navigating unclear or inconsistent engagement from Whitehall, with departments working to different timelines and objectives. Mature partnership requires more than ad-hoc working groups. It needs agreed processes, clear escalation routes, shared visibility and commitment to delivery plans.

The shift is subtle but important: collaboration is no longer optional or solely dependent on local leadership – it is part of the statutory fabric. This framework opens the door to more efficient and targeted services which break down silos and drives long-term regional growth and prosperity, where joined-up local delivery is the norm.

As the legislation makes its way through Parliament, it demonstrates how these reforms can make a real difference to people's lives. But, while the duty to collaborate creates a useful legal baseline, it is not sufficient on its own to drive this change.

We need a new operating model across tiers of government built on trust, joint delivery and shared outcomes. This type of mature cross-tier working requires purposeful and proactive investment in three areas: accountability, planning and local capacity.

For collaboration to work in practice, every partner must understand their role in the system – not just in principle, but in terms of day-to-day delivery. That means being clear about who holds decision-making power, who is responsible for outcomes and how disagreements are resolved when priorities do not align.

Too often, local leaders find themselves navigating unclear or inconsistent engagement from Whitehall, with departments working to different timelines and objectives. Mature partnership requires more than ad-hoc working groups. It needs agreed processes, clear escalation routes, shared visibility and commitment to delivery plans.

In many places, formal partnership agreements or joint governance structures are starting to provide this clarity, but they need to be supported and replicated, not left to chance.

Where outcomes are interdependent, for example, between skills and transport or health and housing, the system needs to enable joint planning with local, regional and central partners from the outset, not just collaboration at the point of delivery. That means aligning commissioning cycles, agreeing on common metrics and enabling pooled or flexible funding, where possible.

Test and Learn pilots have shown shared outcome frameworks and co-ordinated delivery teams can support this type of integrated approach.

The wider system still tends to default to siloed working. Embedding joint planning as standard – particularly for major national programmes delivered in place – is essential if the duty is to be more than symbolic.

Meaningful collaboration depends on local partners having the people, skills and tools to play a full role in shaping and delivering cross-cutting policy. However, many strategic authorities still lack core capabilities such as data analytics, commissioning expertise or partnership management.

If national government wants places to act as strategic convenors and not simply recipients of delegated delivery, it must match its expectations with investment in core capacity. That includes funding for co-ordination, secondments and tools to support shared evidence and planning.

Places are showing that where government trusts and enables place leadership with funding and collaboration, innovation and alignment follow. But they also reveal what makes the difference: relationships, shared evidence and a willingness to co-own outcomes.

Where this is happening, it's already shifting dynamics, with Mayoral Strategic Authorities moving away from being seen as delivery arms, and towards being seen as strategic partners shaping both the what and the how of policy implementation and informing national approaches. The North East Child Poverty Action Plan, announced by Kim McGuinness shows real leadership and innovation, and through NECA's Child Poverty Reduction Unit, is influencing national policy on the issue.

The same can be said for Greater Manchester's ‘prevention demonstrator', which seeks to improve outcomes by integrating and reforming public services so that people can access hyper-local support.

Our aim at the Growth and Reform Network is to support places to unstick challenges and connect tiers of government so we can make quicker progress.

With the new Devolution Bill, we have legislated for collaboration. Now we need to implement it.

Image Credit: Orry Verducci from unsplash